Several Bible scholars who reviewed the proposed readings at the request of the Houston Chronicle criticized the list for its exclusion of other religious scriptures, use of translations that they say have been discredited, and a selection of texts that some say are used only in religious settings rather than academic ones.

I'm all for more people reading the Christian Bible, it's the best way to turn people Atheist.

Religion is the biggest scam in human history.

use of translations that they say have been discredited

New International Version? It's known to be shite, where translations of some sections are distorted to fit pre-conceived fundie superstitions rather than being faithful to the original texts.

I mean, the KJV is full of errors, often due to errors in the source documents used, but at least it was translated by people who were literate.

Putting aside the fact that this is a flagrant and intentional violation of the separation of church and state: this is begging for malicious compliance

Read the passage, and then turn it into a debate for the class: assign groups in two sets, at random - pointedly not based on actual beliefs or the religion (or lack thereof) of the student in question - biblical adherents and secular adherents (that will switch off whenever this exercise occurs, to give students experience on both the pro and con side, regardless of their personal beliefs, because that is valuable in terms of learning to debate). And later, perhaps expand that into debating the points from the viewpoints of other belief sets - abrahamic, polytheistic, animist, agnostic, atheist, whatever. Not only would it technically satisfy the regs, it would also very pointedly adhere much more closely to the original intent of the separation of church and state - which is not to deny that any such belief sets exist, but that the state shall take no stance in overt support or suppression of any particular belief sets exist (or lack thereof - though that reprehensible fuckstick Scalia openly disagrees that atheism is a valid personal belief system).

I would expect nothing less from a traitor state full of heathens.

“We're dealing with the Hebrew text, and then we confront different translations and different translational decisions and debate whether those are accurate or inaccurate,” Buster said. “So, there isn't a Jewish way to translate a particular word, and a Christian way to translate a particular word. Those different communities would probably come with different sensitivities.”

Mostly true, but many translations are produced by institutions which require their scholars to adhere to a statement of faith and therefore alter translations to fit their dogmas. Translations which prioritise certain Christian dogmas will (mis)translate words or passages (e.g. translating certain Hebrew Bible passages in the future tense in order to make them seem like prophecy about Jesus despite there being no grammatical or contextual basis for doing so other than the theological framework they are shoehorning the text into).

I'm not opposed to the Bible being read in schools for literary/cultural/historical educational purposes, but this should be done from a text critical perspective using translations which are suitable for academic study... which is never going to happen in the US. Using the Bible to prop up narrow-minded ideologies with no concern for the historical context of when the texts in it were written, the authors' varied and often contradicting intentions and the historical developments which led to the dogmas different people profess today has no place is schools.